


First Step

by faege



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-05-13
Updated: 2012-05-13
Packaged: 2017-11-06 15:44:17
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,261
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/420539
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/faege/pseuds/faege
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>  <i>“Just pick the kid up, Sam,” Dean snaps and gives another kick to the rusted gate.</i></p>
            </blockquote>





	First Step

**Author's Note:**

> Written as a fill for [](http://checkthemargins.livejournal.com/profile)[**checkthemargins**](http://checkthemargins.livejournal.com/)'s prompt on the [](http://ohsam.livejournal.com/profile)[**ohsam**](http://ohsam.livejournal.com/) May 2, 2012 comment fic meme: _Sam has a burn scar from some fire somewhere (take a pick, he's had a lot) on his arm/throat/face/chest/back somewhere that might be visible at some point without getting x-rated, and he's really, really self-conscious about it. Dean being awesome a mega bonus. Little kids or other less-than-polite adults asking about it and Sam getting all flustered and embarrassed about it a mega bonus x2._

Normally this wouldn’t be a problem and Dean would let Sam take however long he needed, but they’re out of time and Dean doesn’t have the patience for being gentle.

“Just pick the kid up, Sam,” Dean snaps and gives another kick to the rusted gate.

Behind him, Sam has finally given up coaxing the frightened little girl from her corner and hauls her up despite her shrill cries. He doesn’t miss the look Sam shoots him but he doesn’t feel guilty either—they’ve been a lot nicer when things were a lot crappier before, and the monster’s dead so they’re not even doing the “save the civilians, come back to the lair later” bit. Dean could be nicer. But he’s not. Besides, it’s New York and alligators living in the sewers wouldn’t be the weirdest things they’ve come across.

One last kick and the hinges give way. He shoulders the gate open wide enough for him to slide through the opening, grab the girl, and then pass her back to Sam once he’s through. She tries to bury her face in Dean’s shirt and starts crying again when he holds her out for Sam to take, which is almost as bad as the look on Sam’s face when she covers her face with her hands and kicks at his ribs with her three-year-old feet, still bawling.

“Spoiled brat,” Dean mutters, giving her a dark look and cocking his shotgun. As much as he almost wishes they could leave this kid to the monster—seriously, the toddler who’s afraid of Sam? Skip the boogeyman, it’s the kid who’s got Dean worried—they do have principles, enough to keep him from leaving the kid behind when she lets out another high-pitched wail. Plus, Sam would have a fit if they left her there.

“Give the kid a break,” Sam says levelly. He has the girl riding on his left hip even though Dean knows it’s got to be pulling on the still-healing stitches along Sam’s ribs from last week’s tulpa. _It’s not that bad,_ he wants to tell Sam but he’s been telling Sam that for years and Sam never listens.

“Would you switch her to your other side? You’re going to pop your stitches.”

Sam glares and then ducks his head, predictably, hair falling in his face, but he doesn’t shift the girl to his right side. “If it bothers you so much, why don’t you carry her?”

_Because it’s not that bad. Because she needs to get over it. Because I want people to look at you like you’re as normal as they are for once._ “Because if I do she won’t let go,” Dean says instead. “Can’t you shut her up?”

“She’s kind of traumatized, Dean.”

“And I appreciate that, poor kid gets ripped out of her bed at night and held hostage in a sewer, but the big bad monster is toast and she’s getting carried out of here by the big damn hero, so if she doesn’t shut the hell up _right now,_ ” Dean turns and casts a glare behind him, “I’m about three seconds from leaving her to get _eaten._ ”

The word echoes around the dank tunnel, harsh enough to cut the girl off mid-wail and leave her hiccupping in Sam’s arms. She has her hands looped in the collar of Sam’s t-shirt, and even if her eyes are as big as saucers she’s not pitching a fit about the shiny pink skin showing where Sam’s shirt has pulled away from his neck.

“Dean,” Sam says quietly and Dean feels the tension run from his shoulders. He’s in a mood and Sam gets it and Sam knows why it is. Neither of them can fix it, but Sam knowing helps.

“We’re here.” It’s not an apology but Dean’s gentle as he takes the girl from Sam and he lets her cling while Sam takes the weapons and their duffel up the ladder to the grate leading to the street above them.

Five seconds later they’re out and blinking in the sun in the dead end of an alley with a toddler breaking into a fresh spate of tears and two parents looking pathetically shell-shocked.

This is the part Dean hates.

It’s easier for civilians to handle two guys dressed like Feds who are spouting things about werewolves and ghosts in the sanctity of their pastel-painted walls. It’s easier for the glances to skim over Sam’s face and not linger too long, for them to politely look away and offer coffee or lemonade and then shake their hands when they leave.

Dean looks at the parents clutching their little daughter to their chests and knows what they see: two men toting guns and knives, bruised and muddy, one of them with a scar covering half his face, the other with crazed psycho written all over him. Dean doesn’t care. Screw them. Sam is hunched over, left arm held gingerly which is a sure sign that he ripped his stitches, and he has his head down so his hair falls over the right side of his face. They’re done here.

“You’re welcome,” Dean says, a little too much sneer in his voice for it to be considered polite, and drops the grating back over the manhole. “C’mon, Sam.”

“Th-thank you,” the dad starts but Dean holds up a hand.

“Save it.”

He’s in a mood and only Sam knows why and he’s too tired to be anything other than angry that these people have their picket-fence life when Sam’s crashed down around his head when he was twenty-two, that Sam’s baptism into the hunting life came by fire, that these people who look so scared and horrified have no idea what true horror is because they weren’t there to see Sam do his best to push down the grief and deal with the hand he’d been dealt and then find out that he had to do it all with bandages and then scars stretching from his forehead to his right cheekbone.

And the truth is, Dean has hated those scars since the moment he set eyes on them. These people look at them and see the surface, but they don’t see that Sam feels like he’s been branded, like he has _demon_ written in his blood, in his skin. And they don’t see that Dean feels the same way, that of all the people he’s been trying to convince, his own self has been the most difficult.

Sam puts a hand on his knee and squeezes when they’re in the car, like he’s the one who needs comforting, and Dean steadfastly ignores it. They drive until the city is behind them, and then they drive until they’re in who-knows-what state and the only things they’re passing are inanimate objects: barns, cows, fields. _I think we should take a break,_ Dean wants to say but all he can do is tighten his hands on the steering wheel and keep driving. _I think you shouldn’t feel like you have to hide for what you do. I think you deserve everything you’re giving everyone else and I wish to God you didn’t feel like you’re in this alone._

The Impala hums along the highway like she was born to this particular stretch of nowhere, and Sam shifts in his seat and hums along to the music. After a while he says, “I think we should take a break.”

He catches Dean’s surprised look with a grin.

“Okay,” Dean says and finds breathing a little easier.

First step. That’s enough for now.  



End file.
